Philosophy and capacity for continual improvement

Teaching can only ever lead to the best learning possible if those delivering it are happy, motivated and highly skilled. We have created our Pyramid of CPL to ensure we have a system of recognising and rewarding those who share our ambition for being the best we can be. Our Pyramid touches all aspects of our workforce and provides a Trust model of training and development that integrates with other national frameworks, from apprenticeships to the NPQs. From network meetings to our more formalised “Generation Nex” leadership programme, the Trust will continually evolve our offer to meet the ever evolving need of our workforce.

Given the size of the Trust, we receive a Schools Conditional Allocation grant every year, which can be called on where schools require capital investment to ensure that all our learning environments are as good as possible. Since forming the MAT, we have secured over £3m for capital projects for our schools, whilst also opening two brand new, purpose built academies.

At the same time, the Trust ensures all schools have the support of a suitably qualified and experienced Competent Person to advise on health & safety and risk management matters. This resource proved essential throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and has also proven to be an invaluable source of advice and support for routine school management which governors and school leaders regularly call on.

We have a network of highly trained and experienced practitioners and Team Teach trainers who have amassed immeasurable experience in supporting children and young people who exhibit the most complex of behaviours. Exclusions across our academies are virtually non-existence, which is a direct result of the child-centred practice we enable through the use of personalisation and evidence based behaviour management support and de-escalation techniques.

At the same time, we have a unique expertise in supporting pupils with social, emotional and mental health difficulties. Our hospital school has a highly specialist offer for children being assessed at Tier 4 CAMHS, and this brings a wealth of experience at the highest tier of child and adolescent mental health services. Be it full time placements; dual placements; or outreach support: our Trust has the unique skills and experience to help ensure all children are included in their education and schools are supported to facilitate this in the most successful way possible.

A decade of austerity- followed by the economy-shattering COVID-19 pandemic – means that state schools have to have rigorous means of ensuring value for money and accounting for every penny of the public monies which reflect 100% of our MAT funding.

The Trust has established a strong central team of accountancy and procurement experts to work with Headteachers and School Business Managers to support them in robust budget management. 95% of budgetary decision making sits with school leaders, and the Trust invests in the right level of skills and experience to augment strong local practice to ensure absolute compliance at all times with the expectations of the Education & Skills Funding Agency.

Over time, more and more of our academies have asked to enter into jointly procured services to enhance value for money, and we continue to secure economies of scale with collective bargaining arrangements for utilities and maintenance services.

We have great capacity within the central Trust and across our academies for shaping curriculum to meet the needs of the communities we serve. Through our network and mandate groups, we harness this expertise and align it to our shared endeavour of ‘learning together, to be the best we can be’.

From phonics to the arts, maths to sports: we have our core principles which drive up the bottom line of expectation in all our schools without creating a ‘one size fits all’ model. We actively promote a diverse curriculum offer because we have robust quality assurance measures in place to assure us of the strength of our practice. We work with other MATs, Teaching School Hubs and school improvement agencies to bring in expertise and ensure we are constantly challenging the merits of our models of provision.

In addition to our engagement with the statutory local authority EP services, we also have bespoke Educational Psychology capacity to support our schools in having the most evidence-based means of personalising provision for children and young people. The Trust acts as coordinator and facilitator of this provision, ensuring the needs of each individual school are met.

Children spend more time with their families than they’ll ever spend at school. As such, it’s so important to our Trust that we support our schools to have the best possible relationships with children and families. That’s why we have a Partnerships Manager in the central Trust team, who works with our pastoral leads to help ensure they have the most current, evidence based tools to get the most impactful outcome from our work with families. The growth of the ‘Early Help’ sector and the key role schools play in this was a key driver for why we have invested in this model of support and advice for our staff, and why it has proved so supportive to our schools.

Our workforce is our most valuable resource, and ensuring we have robust HR policies that are implemented fairly and equitable across the Trust is hugely important, as these are the cornerstones of an ethical employer.

We also passionately believe in open and transparent employment relations, which is why we elect to pay into Trades Union facilities time with our local authority partners – so that our workforce who are members of a Trades Union get the benefit of local advice and support on a sustainable basis.

The Trust provides our schools with the HR consultancy, advice and capacity that leaders governors and staff need to act confidently and openly.

At the same time, the Trust also ensures that there is clear and structured access to legal advice whenever it is needed, with Howes Percival and Irwin Mitchell among our suite of legal advisors.

The evolution of the digital age means that we all face more and more risks when it comes to management of data and governance of the information we hold. At the same time, the benefits of information and communication technologies (ICT) as an enabler of learning and community engagement is something that requires constant review and investment.

The Trust has minimum standards for internet access and server infrastructure for all our academies, and we ensure we invest in this so that all of our learners have equality of opportunity and experience.

We have clear procedures and infrastructure to support effective information governance, which manages the associated risks without seeking to avoid them. Combined with our central team of IT engineers – bought back by our schools where an academy doesn’t have this expertise in their own local workforce – we have a strong model of highly effective support.

The Trust holds the paramountcy principle of child protection as one of its key pillars, and from the Board of Directors all the way through to our school communities: safeguarding is something that we maintain a relentless focus on.

Our Named Director for Safeguarding holds regular meetings with Heads, and publishes an annual statement of assurance to attest to the practice across our Trust.

We believe it is essential to ensure that those staff dealing with the oversight and management of safeguarding on a daily basis have the support and tools to do this as effectively as possible. As a Trust, we invest in CPOMS so that we have a tried and tested management information system to support record keeping.

All Designated Safeguarding Leads are also supported through half termly clinical supervision from an experienced child protection practitioner, to ensure they have the chance to draw on structured support from an external, objective expert.

Pupil voice is so important for school leaders, but for our Trust this isn’t enough. Taking that voice and enabling it to become pupil agency – where learners have genuine ownership over change in their schools and the Trust that unites us all – is what drives our work.

In 2020 we introduced pioneering work into our schools with the implementation of the UK Schools’ Parliament model, and we are the first MAT in the country to develop a Trust parliamentary model, that integrates pupil voice and agency alongside our workforce, the communities we serve and our network of stakeholders. A true effort to establish a civic structure where democracy is clear and present.